Wednesday, March 14, 2018 marked the passing of fly-fishing legend Lefty Kreh. The Baltimore resident did it all: invented fly patterns (Lefty’s Deceiver), wrote many instructional articles and books, traveled and developed new fisheries, and helped thousands improve their fly casting. His mark on the sport is such that without him, fly fishing would look significantly different today.
I won’t get into a full biography here; there are many well written articles and interviews out there about him which I encourage you to read. I will however describe the indirect way in which he impacted my life. And no, it’s not the fact that probably one out of every three flies in my fly bag is a Deceiver, nor is it the fact that I taught myself to double-haul straight from his book. This anecdote has a longer and more far reaching trajectory than gear or technique, it is a story about the birthplace of my lifelong passion for fishing.
My grandfather, a devoted angler himself, had the good fortune to sit one row in front of Lefty about 30 years ago on a plane. Newly retired and eager to relocate to somewhere he could spend his days on the water, he struck up a conversation with Lefty about his plans. My grandfather had grown up in Richmond and worked for many years in Baltimore, and was very familiar with the Chesapeake Bay. However, in the late 80s, the Bay was experiencing the collapse of its premiere fishery – the striped bass – due to pollution and overfishing. It was so bad that a complete moratorium was introduced in order to revive the stock. Lefty instead suggested the southern North Carolina area, with good inshore fisheries for red drum, trout, and flounder, and excellent nearshore fisheries for king mackerel, grouper, and snapper.
My grandparents spent ten years in Wilmington, North Carolina, overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway and Masonboro Island. My grandfather moved through several boats during his time there, from a small aluminum runabout to a 23’ twin outboard catamaran. Twice a year my family would load up the Land Cruiser and head south to spend a week at my grandparents’ place. Those vacations were an incubator for the 8-year old aspiring angler; I gradually progressed from catching bass in the stocked pond on bloodworms to catching flounder in the shallow sandy inlets on curly-tail jigs. I remember the disappointment at having to stay behind while the adults went offshore. My brother and I would pass time by poking around the mudflats looking for fiddler crabs, and throwing cast nets off the pier for mullet and shrimp, eagerly awaiting the sight of my Grandfather’s catamaran pulling into its slip, fishboxes full of king mackerel and grouper. The sense of accomplishment in my modest catches mixed with the yearning to be able to go on longer trips for bigger fish solidified my love for fishing. I wasn’t a fly angler yet, but the seeds were surely planted. No one can say how my life would’ve turned out if my grandparents had retired to Arizona or Tennessee or some other place where the tides don’t ebb & flow, but I am indebted to Lefty for steering my family to the saltwater.
